


invisible machinery.

by braunholdt



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts and Ideation, hints of unrequited love and mutual pining, liberal use of the em dash, spoilers up to chapter 97
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26617066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braunholdt/pseuds/braunholdt
Summary: "Bertholdt had been the one to follow through at Trost, who had risked exposing himself to breach the outer wall at Reiner’s insistence, who had dutifully followed him as he stumbled through each haphazard plan, into the Corps, into exposing themselves and bringing an end to the charade once and for all. Misplaced loyalty, brotherhood, love; in the end, he never really knew which it had been — only that he hadn't been deserving of any of it."Reiner mourns the loss of the man he thought he could be, and of the friend who had tried so desperately to save him from himself. (An introspection of Chapter 97.)
Relationships: Reiner Braun & Bertolt Hoover, Reiner Braun/Bertolt Hoover
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	invisible machinery.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lani/gifts).



> I recently had the pleasure of reconnecting with a friend I had written with several years ago, when Attack on Titan first became popular. Lani wrote the most wonderful Bertholdt, and so much of my love for the Marley warrior lads came from all the content we fleshed out together. What better way to celebrate rekindling an old friendship than by dishing up a big helping of angst after weeks of struggling through it?
> 
> Trigger warnings for suicidal thoughts, as well as an attempt that nearly becomes an actuality. I was never fully satisfied with the way Reiner was shown to handle Bertholdt's death, and I've felt for a while that it was too muted a response for someone who had been so close to him, especially when Reiner's own insistence helped set into motion the events that ultimately led to Chapter 84/Episode 55. I wanted to fill in some of those gaps, specifically with regards to their dynamic, and a relationship that always felt like it transcended labels. Some creative liberties are taken with events and certain translations, but I tried to keep the heart of it as close to canon as I could.

Distractions had been the promise that had coaxed him back to Marley. It was a guarantee he could truss up with the trappings of duty, pride, honor — words he had clung so desperately to in his youth, now a convenient facade to mask the true shame of his return. The words themselves ring hollow, as gutted and empty as he feels, distractions in their own right. 

  
Another lie he can immerse himself in, a collection of half-truths from a double life that’s proven only moderately more palatable than the one he left behind. 

  
He should have known better than anyone that Liberio would be full of ghosts, phantoms pressed into the shadows of every street corner, hiding in the faces of the huddled masses. Everything feels like an echo, less a physical memory and more akin to something wrenched from his dreams, muted and twisted by the erosion of time. Memories flicker like the rudimentary lanterns they had relied on in Paradis, stuttering, uncertain. He catches glimpses of them in the corners of his eyes, in the harried faces of candidates as they toil for approval. He sees the camaraderie in their ranks, the rough banter and encouragement as they struggle. The humanity of it all makes him ache, makes him feel protective and rueful of them all at once, split between the urge to be a guardian or a warning, a beacon of light in the darkness or a tattered red flag coiling in the wind. 

_  
We could be just like him_ , they foolishly murmur, Falco and Gabi, aspirant inheritors of the Armored Titan. 

_  
You could be just like me_ , he wants to caution them with a desperate cry. 

  
He nearly laughs at the thought, when he has idle time enough to entertain it. Reiner doubts the sound would even manifest if he allowed it — no, it would likely catch in his throat like a strangled sob, hooking on the gnarled tangle of regret that slowly builds there in quieter moments. 

  
How many similar splits has he failed to navigate? Mentor and omen, warrior and soldier. 

  
Friend and foe. 

  
His hands tremble sometimes, but not now. The rifle is heavy in his grip, its weight familiar. Comforting, in some perverse way, as he drags a thumb across the polished sheen of the wood, calloused skin catching on the imperfections, the scars of overuse. A tactile sensation he can focus on, one that he knows with all certainty is real, so unlike the hollow memory of warm, passing touches. It creeps up on him still, years later, when the downward curve of his sagging shoulders draws an ache from his back, and his thoughts drift too far afield to keep them from straying fully into a ruined past. A hand on his shoulder, comforting, reaching up to cup the back of his neck. 

  
Bertholdt always knew. He’d been the protector in the beginning, Reiner’s savior from the overbearing cruelty of his peers. He’d seen the warning signs of his friend’s descent into lunacy, long before Reiner himself had caught on. A trauma response, a bastardization of Marcel that he’d adopted because he was incapable of coping with the guilt of his death, with his own woeful inadequacy. He wasn’t even truly the man Bertholdt had been friends with for those final, confused years. The protective friend, amiable and uplifting, had morphed into a warped mask of his own butchered psyche, a comforting blinder he could fit over himself to make it through each precarious day. A soldier. He hates the word now, hates the way it weighs in his mind, tastes in his mouth. Hates who it made him become. 

  
But had the man he’d been in private truly been any better? 

  
He’d taken some solace in that, once — the misguided belief that in his more lucid moments, he made up for his missteps. Sliding the clip into the receiver of the rifle, the sharp echo of metal locking into place momentarily filling the stillness of the room, he finds he can no longer stomach the lie. The warrior had failed utterly, from the start. _We should have gone home_ , he thinks, thought, the words a bitter chastisement echoed hundreds of times before. Bertholdt and Annie had wanted to return, after Marcel — reevaluate their strategy, only carry on with a full party. It had been Reiner who had fought them, stubborn and immoveable. Reiner who had pushed them to attack Trost the day before the trainees were scheduled to graduate, only to become so mired in his own guilt over Marco’s cruel murder that he’d failed to find a way to shift and break through the final gate of Wall Rose. Reiner who had impulsively joined the Survey Corps, once the complication of Eren had utterly blindsided them. Reiner who had allowed himself to become so treacherously lost in his own head that, finally, the only conceivable path to victory had meant revealing their secret to everyone. Reiner who had snapped and snarled at his companions at each fork in the road, thrusting them down the path of greatest resistance each time. 

  
Annie had come to learn not to expect much from him, had learned to hate him, by the time they parted ways. He wondered sometimes, before her capture, if she’d been thankful for the reprieve that came with joining the Military Police. Operating alone, beholden only to the mission’s objective and her own calm judgement, free from his overbearing demands and Bertholdt’s indecision. 

  
Reiner winces, shakes his head, releasing a shuddering lungful of air he hadn’t even realized was pent up in his chest. Not indecision — _where had that thought even come from?_ No, Bertholdt had always known what he was doing. 

  
Bertholdt had been the one to follow through at Trost, who had risked exposing himself to breach the outer wall at Reiner’s insistence, who had dutifully followed him as he stumbled through each haphazard plan, into the Corps, into exposing themselves and bringing an end to the charade once and for all. Misplaced loyalty, brotherhood, love; in the end, he never really knew which it had been — only that he hadn't been deserving of any of it. Bertholdt had followed him, because he knew that on his own, Reiner would drown in the lie, swept away by the tide of his own indomitable guilt. Bertholdt had known that he was the only lifeline available, the only stitch holding him together at the seams — an unfair burden Reiner had forced upon him without realizing it, not until it was too late to correct the damage. An unfair burden he’d died shouldering. 

  
He draws back the bolt, the first round releasing from the clip and sliding into place as he chambers it. Live weapon. He gauges the length of the barrel, eyes only half-focused, seeing memories past the grain of the wood stock. He’ll be able to reach the trigger. 

_  
“I can’t keep going on like this.”_

_  
“I know. I’m sorry.”_

  
He’d meant it — _God_ , how he’d meant it. But even his purest convictions fell abysmally short. How many apologies had Bertholdt suffered through, just to watch his friend drift back into the caricature he’d made of himself, to watch Reiner wander errantly through the lie they’d concocted? How many times had Reiner promised an end to the episodes, a return home, a steadfast friend? How many times had he promised to protect them, to protect _him_ ? _“I won’t leave you, I swear, I’ll always be here,”_ he’d vowed, and lied, again, and again, and again. All hollow oaths, pledged with a heartfelt sincerity that his mind couldn’t sustain. He’d placate Bertholdt’s anxieties, dry the tears from his face, but within a few days’ time, would inexplicably drift off again, comforted by the fabricated ignorance he could never manage to fight against. 

  
Because Bertholdt knew. Even standing mute behind him, he knew with each step, with each night spent out in revelry with their unsuspecting “comrades,” that Reiner was slipping away. 

_  
“Why didn’t you say anything?”_

_  
“How could I?”_

  
He turns the gun, resting the back of the stock against the floor, hand wrapped around the cold steel of the barrel. It balances precariously, its curvature meant to fit neatly against his shoulder, the weapon held upright only by his steady grip. 

  
“You couldn’t have,” he replies to the memory, the echo of a voice that in his worst moments, he struggles to remember. “You couldn’t have trusted me with any of it.” 

  
His eyes burn, warmth spilling over, clinging to his lashes before falling freely. A strained silence surrounds him as he shuts his eyes, focusing on the stillness. Each year has muted the image of him, sanded away at the softness of his smile, the gentleness behind Bertholdt’s eyes. What bitter irony, that the memories he so desperately wishes to escape from hang around his neck like a millstone, sinking his shoulders each time he passes by any place that reminds him of his friend, while the few traces of lingering happiness become smoke every time he grasps at them. But if he focuses hard enough, there are times where a memory will spring forth, innocuous and fleeting, pain and fondness welling in his chest — stifled laughter, a private joke, a hand on his back, lips pressed against the side of his head. 

  
It hurts, aches, but he needs _something_ , anything but the cold stillness that’s lingered at his side for four years. Like losing a limb, someone had once told him; but, no, that was wrong. More than a limb, more than anything physical he could have ever sacrificed. He felt it, feels it, down to the marrow of his bones, the deepest pit of his chest, the farthest reaches of his mind. Like something had been carved out from the inside of him, like he’d been hollowed out, all warmth and tenderness wrenched away with it. 

_  
“You’re always there to put me back together.”_

_  
“I won’t give up on you. Don’t ever think that.”_

_  
You should have left me,_ he thinks as his fingers start to quake against the rifle. _The minute I started to forget, you should have let me go and continued on without me._ But no, that was never Bertholdt’s way. From the moment they’d met, he’d offered Reiner more understanding than he’d deserved, more patience than his temper had warranted. He’d let Reiner lose himself to the illusion of normalcy, unwilling to rob him of that respite, even if it meant suffering through the burden of carrying their secret alone. And when Reiner broke, shocked back into himself and the memories of what they had done, Bertholdt had always been there, soothing him through the onslaught of memories, chest pressed against his back as the aftershocks abated, clinging to him desperately with the knowledge that, before long, he’d be stranded once again when Reiner’s mind inevitably succumbed to the strain of their mission. 

  
He’d made himself such a stranger to Bertholdt, doling out piece after piece of himself for the sake of a lie, until all that had been left was a confused shell of who his friend needed him to be. They’d drift apart, apart, apart, before colliding desperately, clinging to each other in pain and grief and terror as they had after the disaster at Trost, the rot and smoke from the pyres still hanging in the air as they grieved through their guilt and their failure. _You were the only thing keeping me together._

_  
“I never felt I could rely on you, until now.”_

_  
“I know.”_

  
“I’m sorry.” A lifetime too late, but still the words come, the penance that he should have brought to Berthold each day from the very minute they’d reached Wall Maria. Atonement for their final parting words, for every sordid, terrible thing Reiner had forced them to do, for not returning them to Marley when Marcel was devoured in front of them, for ever making his friend feel as if he were a burden whose indecisiveness Reiner was forced to guide him through. _How could I have ever said that to you?_ “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” 

  
He rights himself suddenly, blinking away the shimmering wetness clinging to the corners of his eyes. He peers down at the gun, thinking of the bullet chambered inside its barrel, nearly hesitating — not out of fear, out of some final, fleeting sense of self-preservation. No, this simply feels too kind. A single bullet, virtually painless. Bertholdt hadn’t been afforded that same luxury. He knew little about what had transpired, but his tortured mind had filled the gaps of his knowledge in countless ways, each more agonizing than the next. His friend had likely died alone, scared and in pain, helpless and fully aware of the fate awaiting him. Marcel, ripped to pieces as his friends fled in terror; Annie, encased behind crystal in Paradis; Bertholdt, abandoned to fight alone to his own bitter, terrifying end. 

  
And here sits Reiner, fixated on the rifle’s open muzzle and the luxury of a quick death so cruelly withheld from those far more deserving of such a mercy. 

  
Life had never been especially fair to any of them, had it? 

  
He leans forward, back bowing slightly, a shuddering breath drawn into unsteady lungs. The barrel slips between his lips, over his tongue, pressing to the roof of his mouth. 

_  
I always relied on you. I always cared for you._ Loved him, even — whatever love would have, could have, meant for them. Everything or nothing, a life after Paradis, or dying together behind the walls they’d endeavored to destroy. He could have said it, could have thanked Bertholdt for the countless sacrifices he’d made to bolster each of Reiner’s haphazard plans, for each time he’d dragged him back from the brink of madness when Reiner’s brain shut itself away from the horrors of their transgressions. Loved him like a friend, a lover, a comrade, the other half of himself, a constant companion whose absence had carved away everything good left in him. _Did you know? Even though I couldn’t bring myself to say it, did you know?_

  
An answer won’t come. Even if dead men could speak, Reiner knows he doesn’t deserve the solace of a response. 

  
His thumb finds the trigger.

  
“Shit!”

  
The word swims in his head, muffled, half-wondering if he’d imagined it. But then it comes again, sharper, just outside the barred window he’s hunched beneath. Falco. Falco, frustrated, aspiring, wanting so desperately the very same thing Reiner had striven for when he too had been a candidate. Falco chastising himself for his own perceived ineptitude, striking the outside wall again, and again, and again. 

_  
“Get up, Reiner.”_

_  
He’d looked up, face still smarting from where Porco had struck him, pride marred on the training field. A tall, rangy figure manifested through the blurriness of his vision as he fought in vain against his tears. The words weren’t insistent, or mocking, nothing like the belittling orders he’d grown so used to hearing each time he fell behind. The other boy’s voice was calm, matter-of-fact. Steadying._

_  
Reiner blinked, uncertain, but the hand stayed outstretched, patiently waiting to be grasped. A top candidate, skilled marksman — what was Bertholdt doing, helping the weakest, most shame-faced of the bunch? What did he care?_

_  
They’re jeered as the rest of the group broke away, hurrying off to the rest of their exercises, unwilling to run the risk of being left behind. But the other boy stayed, reaching down, and something in Reiner knew that even if he remained there on the ground, quivering in the dirt, he still wouldn’t be abandoned._

_  
Sucking in a deep breath, lungs trembling, he reached out and took Bertholdt’s hand, allowing himself to be pulled back up and helped along._

  
So many years later, and he can suddenly hear the words again with startling clarity, as if by focusing his gaze the boy who had helped him back into his feet would be standing there, patient and forgiving. _Get up, Reiner._

  
The barrel moves in his mouth, and he suddenly wrenches it away, gagging on the bitter taste of polish and gunpowder residue. His breaths come in short gasps, ragged and pained, and for a moment he thinks he’ll throw up on the floor, on his boots, on the crisp white uniform with the stiff collar that feels like a noose each time it’s buttoned around his throat. “I’m sorry,” he babbles again, muted and breathless, desperate, apologizing to the boy, the man, the friend, the protector, the one he’d kept at arms’ length even as they drifted in a sea of _almosts_ and _nearly theres_ , blundering madly from one tragedy to the next, apologizing for failing to be the man Bertholdt had thought enough of to befriend as a child. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” 

  
Bertholdt isn’t here now, to help him back up. The thought is almost enough to wish the muzzle of the gun back into his mouth, but still he keeps it pointed away, at the ceiling now, fighting to catch his breath. He’d be disgusted, if he were here to see Reiner in such a state — disgusted, and disappointed, mortified that he’d ever put so much faith in someone so weak. Yet, inexplicably, something assuages the toiling pity; it was his own guilt speaking, his own searing sense of self-loathing that twisted Bertholdt’s memory in his mind. No, his friend had always been patient, had always stood there with his hand outstretched, even when Reiner wandered away from him, had always been far forgiving of the countless flaws that marred the psyche Reiner had tried and failed to salvage on his own. 

  
What he wouldn’t give to feel that hand against the back of his neck again, and quietly be reassured, _“You’re okay.”_

  
There’s still the new candidates, frustrated and ambitious, voices echoing with so much of the same hope his, _theirs_ , had rang with as children. He’s on his own now to stand, to either go to them or to be the body they find when a single gunshot alerts them of yet another tragic twist in the story of their predecessor. 

  
Two years left before the Armored Titan is passed on. His time is fixed either way.

_  
Get up, Reiner._

  
He sets the rifle to the side and slowly stands, wiping at his face as his lungs shudder. Deep breaths, in, out, in, out, as he and Bertholdt had coached each other through each time the stress became too much. “I’m up,” he finally says, to himself, to the silence, to the empty space beside him where Bertholdt should still be. “I’m up.”

  
Following the sound of Falco’s retreating voice, he finally exits the room. 

**Author's Note:**

> Getting to write Reiner again was like visiting a favorite childhood haunt. I hope everyone enjoyed the read!


End file.
